Assessing new intelligence
An assessment by US intelligence agencies, released on 3 December 2007, that Iran halted its nuclear-weapons work in late 2003, has profoundly shifted the dynamics of the international response to Iran’s nuclear programme. The new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which represents the analysis of all 16 US intelligence agencies, contradicts a 2005 NIE assessment that Iran was ‘determined to build a nuclear weapon’. The 2007 version reaffirms, however, that Iran did have a dedicated nuclear-weapons programme up until four years ago, including covert uranium-conversion and uranium-enrichment activity. The NIE judges, with ‘moderate confidence’, that Iran still covets a future weapons capability, and that ‘at a minimum [it] is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons’.
Most importantly, the NIE assesses that Iran’s leaders are ‘rational’, guided by a cost–benefit approach rather than a rush to develop weapons at any cost, and that the 2003 halt was in response to international scrutiny and pressure. This, the authors say, suggests that some combination of threats and pressure, along with credible inducements, may prompt Iran to extend the halt – judged ‘with moderate confidence’ to have continued until at least mid 2007. In other words, diplomacy can work – to a point. The NIE assesses, however, that convincing Tehran to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons altogether will be difficult.
The NIE estimates that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a weapon would be late 2009, but that 2010–15 would be a more realistic timeframe. It judges that Iran has the technical capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it wants to, and that a decision to produce HEU for weapons would probably rely on covert facilities rather than the declared enrichment plant at Natanz.
Basis of new judgement
Previous estimates were based in part on documents found on a laptop hard-drive handed over by a defector in 2004. These demonstrated clear military links to various phases of the fuel cycle. Most incriminating were designs for a ballistic missile re-entry vehicle to carry an object that had all the attributes of a nuclear weapon. The laptop also contained scientific notes highly suggestive of triggers to compress HEU spheres into a critical mass for an atomic explosion, as well as sophisticated drawings for a deep shaft that appeared to be designed for an underground nuclear test. The most recent documents on the computer were dated 2003, after which the evidence trail went cold. US intelligence agencies, therefore, launched an intensive search for evidence of more current work.
In June and July 2007, when a very different draft of the NIE was nearly complete, unexpected evidence to the contrary emerged. Derived from multiple sources, it included notes of conversations and deliberations in which officers involved in the project bemoaned a decision to shut down their engineering efforts. The notes were corroborated by intercepted conversations among Iranian officials. Information was added by defectors, possibly including General Ali-Reza Asgari, a former deputy defence minister who in February disappeared in Turkey. Previous intelligence reports were reviewed and revealed details that supported the new judgements. These findings were subjected to a ‘red team’ review to challenge the sources and assumptions from a contrarian viewpoint. Its conclusion was that it was unlikely to be part of an elaborate deception by Iran.
In addition to a surge in clandestine intelligence gathering in Iran, the NIE was the result of new analytical methods deployed by the US intelligence community based on lessons learned from the intelligence failures that preceded the invasion of Iraq. These included a requirement for greater transparency about intelligence sources, a demand to challenge existing assumptions when data does not fit, a new willingness to analyse intentions as well as capabilities, a greater inclination to acknowledge unknowns, and more use of open sources. The NIE relied, for example, on reporters’ pictures of Natanz, which provided clues about technical problems in the enrichment programme, presumably because centrifuges were not installed in a ‘clean room’ environment. The full 130-page classified NIE contained over 1,000 footnotes and was said to be the most deeply sourced NIE ever. Its delivery was reportedly delayed three times for further assessment.
Timing of the release
Consensus among the 16 intelligence agencies was reached on 27 November and President George W. Bush was presented with the findings the next day. NIEs are usually kept fully classified. This time, knowing the key points would have leaked anyway, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who shares release authority with the president, decided, with Bush’s agreement, to release the key judgements to avoid any appearance of a cover-up. Bush apparently did not seek to delay their release or recast them in a way that would be more supportive of the administration’s policy.
The handling of the release was partly the result of personnel changes in the administration, including the departure of pugnacious conservatives, such as Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Doug Feith and Scooter Libby, who were skilful in applying intelligence to policy prescriptions. More important, however, was the appointment to key intelligence positions of non-politicised professionals, including McConnell, CIA Director Michael Hayden and Director of the National Counter-proliferation Center Ken Brill, who were determined to resist political pressure. Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis Thomas Fingar and National Intelligence Officer for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation Vann Van Diepen were the principal authors of the report, which is being cast as the ‘revenge of the careerists’. Along with Brill, they have been victims of ad hominem attacks by right-wing pundits who find particular vexation in their having come from the State Department, whose small intelligence agency was one of the few that objected to the mistaken assessments of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Critics from the American Enterprise Institute have made preposterous claims of a ‘quasi-putsch by the US intelligence community’ and of a ‘clear intention to deceive and to redirect foreign policy’. A more legitimate question is whether the NIE, in the words of former State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow, is the latest example of a ‘pendulum of analytical momentum that swings between highlighting risks and understating risks’.
Policy impact
In their determination to insulate the NIE from political influence, the intelligence chiefs disregarded the diplomatic and strategic impact of a hasty release. This provided a propaganda coup to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called the report a ‘declaration of victory’ for Iran. It also undermined efforts to apply further diplomatic pressure. Just two days before the NIE was released, China had accepted the need for additional UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions, but on 4 December its UN ambassador said: ‘Now things have changed’. Russia likewise said the new report would have to be taken into account in considering new sanctions. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov re-emphasised Moscow’s position that it had not seen any evidence that Iran had, in fact, ever had a nuclear-weapons programme, not even one that it had given up on four years ago.
Seeking to limit the diplomatic damage, the US, UK, France and Germany insisted there would be no change to their policy of pressure on Iran to stop uranium enrichment. On 6 December, EU and NATO foreign ministers agreed on the need for additional UNSC sanctions. The subject of debate, however, is no longer the content of a new resolution but whether there should be one at all. Any new resolution would only mandate an incremental increase in the number of items on the ‘off-limits’ list.
The most significant fallout of the NIE is that it has taken threats of US military action against Iran off the table. Barring the discovery of inflammatory new information discrediting the new findings, Bush would have no empirical basis for launching air strikes and little public support. While the new assessment has defused the unstinting escalation of tension over Iran’s nuclear programme, in removing the military option it has also removed much of the muscle behind American diplomacy. The unclassified NIE judgements note that Iran halted its weapons programme in 2003 under international pressure, but they do not describe what form this pressure took. The strongest international pressure at the time was the threat that the US, having so easily defeated the forces of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, would turn next to Iran.
Israel insists that for its part the military option remains on the table, although it would be very difficult to follow through with this threat without American support. Defence Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged that Iran may have stopped pursuing a military nuclear programme for a time, but reaffirmed Israel’s judgement that the programme is continuing today and that a key source for the American assessment is no longer valid. Israel is not known to have any evidence unavailable to American analysts, but its experts draw different conclusions, in part because they see no other logical explanation for the investment Iran has made in its nuclear programme. French analysts similarly draw different conclusions based on the role of Natanz in giving Iran a future weapons option, and they argue that the NIE was too narrowly focused.
Civilian–military distinction
The NIE defines Iran’s nuclear-weapons programme narrowly as being either work specifically on nuclear weapons, or covert work related to uranium conversion and enrichment. Iran has insisted throughout that its uranium enrichment work is purely for civil purposes. But since fissile material has a dual use, the distinction between civilian and military nuclear work can be artificial. This line is particularly unclear regarding Iran, which has a history of safeguards violations and lack of transparency. A credible nuclear weapon requires three things: a significant quantity of fissile material, either enriched uranium or reprocessed plutonium; an ability to make a weapon from the fissile material; and a means of delivery. Iran is still working diligently on two out of three of these elements, including the hardest part, production of the fissile material.
The work that was apparently halted in 2003 can be resumed at a future date if Iran changes its calculations. Meanwhile, mastering the uranium-enrichment process would enable it to build a bomb quickly if it ever so desired. It could produce a stockpile of low-enriched uranium, ostensibly as nuclear-reactor fuel, and further enrich it to weapons-grade in a matter of weeks by re-running it through the centrifuge cascades. This break-out potential continues to be the most worrisome aspect of Iran’s nuclear programme. As argued by Columbia University scholar Gary Sick, having the threat of a nuclear weapon, even without the weapon itself, is just as useful for Iran in exerting influence over its neighbours. It is even more empowering not to have an explicit weapons programme that would make Iran a military target.
Iran’s ballistic-missile programme heightens this concern. Tehran’s 26 November announcement of a new 2,000km-range Ashura missile was further proof of a determination for a strategic reach well beyond its immediate neighbourhood. Given the inaccuracy of its ballistic missiles, the programme has little purpose except the delivery of nuclear or other unconventional warheads.
Political impact
The NIE undermines the credibility of Bush, who was alerted in August that new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment. His Democratic opponents ask why he nevertheless ratcheted up his rhetorical attacks on Iran – in October he suggested that Iran’s nuclear programme could lead to a Third World War. McConnell had cautioned in August that he could not draw any conclusions until analysts could further assess the data, but Bush did not further press the matter at the time.
The report revived a debate about the quality and credibility of US intelligence services, with Senate Republicans calling for a Congressional commission to investigate its conclusions. Since the NIE admitted previous reports were wrong, it begged the question why it should be believed this time. Some US allies are privately asking the same question.
The dominant foreign reaction, however, has been relief that the prospect of war has retreated. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, whose own assessments are vindicated by the NIE, called it a window of opportunity that gave diplomacy a new chance without the urgency of an immediate threat. Whether diplomacy, which has produced few results over the past four years, will be any more likely to succeed without that threat remains to be seen.
